Ball in general, life on the road… on this blog, either you do or you don't.

Notes of the night/Stat of the day, Aug. 26

Note of the Night, 1: Yes, Felipe Lopez was removed in the fifth inning on Thursday night. No injury was announced, so I theorized that it was simply a move for defense.

And, in a way, it was. Here’s TLR’s explanation for the move:

“It looked to me like Felipe’s arm was bothering him, so I made the change.”

I wasn’t able to talk to Lopez in the clubhouse postgame, so I will follow up tomorrow.

Note of the Night, 2: This could have been a chess match, but I don’t think it really calls for one. I asked TLR about whether Bryan Anderson was an option in either of the situations where a pitcher batted.

He paused. Took a while. Sized it up. And decided to give an answer, thankfully.

Essentially, he argued that the first time, with a runner on first and two outs, it wasn’t enough of a potential scoring situation to burn his last position player. The second time, of course, there was a man in scoring position. But he said he added up the combination of Anderson being the last man on the bench AND the unlikelihood of his coming through against Doug Slaten, who has been a lefty-killer this year (9-for-60, 0 XBH, 5 BB, 21 K), and determined that it didn’t make sense.

The quote:

“I don’t think that was the move to make, going down to the last player. Catcher goes out… We had a way to go. If it had been an RBI situation… Lohse didn’t hit with a guy in scoring position. And then the last time up, it’s Slaten, and do you see what Slaten does to left-handers? I don’t think that was a good at-bat to give our last player a chance. Now if we had some protection, because I think Anderson would hang in there. but if he’s the last guy, against Slaten, a guy who’s wiping left-handers out, no, I didn’t think that was the way to go.”

In short, he seems to be arguing that if it had been a different pitcher, he’d have used Anderson, even as his last player. And if Anderson weren’t his last player, he might have used him, even against Slaten. But the combination ruled it out.

Note of the night, 3: At the end of the night tonight, Joe Strauss of the Post-Dispatch and I had a chat with Albert Pujols about his participation in this weekend’s Restoring Honor rally at the Mall in Washington. I have a story up on the topic on the site, but wanted to flesh it out a little bit more here. Basically, Pujols made it very clear that he wants no part of anything political, and that like TLR, he was assured that when he participates, it will not be political.

That’s not to say it won’t turn out that way. And it’s not to take sides regarding the politics of the organizers. But I came away from the conversation with no doubt in my mind that Pujols wants no part of a political event. Just for what that’s worth.

Stat of the day: The Cardinals have played 89 ninth innings this year, and scored in 30 of them, or 33.7 percent of the time. That’s their highest percentage in any inning except the 19th, where they’re 1-for-1. They’re averaging .72 runs per ninth inning, which is also their highest in any inning except the 19th. Their next most productive innings are the fifth and the first.

Fun with double situational splits: Against lefties, with runners in scoring position, Randy Winn had been 1-for-12 on the year before tonight.

And, finally, the playlist:

More Stones, sorry, but I’m on a kick lately. Five favorite live Stones tracks:

“Gimme Shelter,” Brussels 1973 (or ANY 72-73 show)

“Satisfaction/Uptight” from the 1972 US Tour, w/Stevie Wonder

“Some Girls” from the 99 No Security Tour

“Stray Cat Blues” from Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out

“It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll,” Aragon in Chicago, 2002 (w/Bono. I was there. It was amazing)

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3 Comments

Pathetic… this LOSS was a textbook example of LaRussas’ micromanaging blowing another game – how many pitchers ??? with the game ON THE LINE – the pinch hitter is ??? you guessed it KYLE LOHSE !!! another gem tonight, Tony !!!! another bullpen atom bomb. another wasted season.

First let me say that I believe that TLR is a Hall of Fame manager but like all humans he can make mistakes and I think his managerial error came before the game started when he started Lopez at SS rather than Ryan. Ryan is a MUCH better defensive SS AND at least lately he’s been more productively offensively. That decision cost them at least a couple of runs when Lopez airmailed that throw early in the game. I know that overall Lopez’s offensive production is better than Ryan but not lately and I think it’s also true that ANY gain in offense by playing Lopez is more than offset by the loss defensively.

All of that having been said, though they managed to lose another game that they should have won and they did it by losing focus. This time it was Franklin in the 9th inning when he threw a pitch that was about thigh high right in the center of the plate. Those are the kind of mistakes that THEY CAN NOT AFFORD TO MAKE if they are going to make the post-season. Sadly, if they don’t stop making those kinds of mistakes, whether they are reflected in their inability to score runs or make defensive plays or pitch effectively, it looks like Randy Winn will continue his record streak of not being in the playoffs.

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